Life Examined

*This episode originally aired on January 14, 2023. From our earliest ancestors, we’ve been travelers — first as nomadic tribes, and later as raiders, traders, explorers, and colonizers. Whether by ship or by foot, it’s human nature to move and explore.   Jonathan Bastian talks with travel writer, podcaster, and vagabond Rolf Potts about the merits of travel. Potts is the author of several travel books,  including Vagabonding and Marco Polo Didn't Go There. In his latest book, The Vagabond’s Way: 366 Meditations on Wanderlust, Discovery, and the Art of Travel, Potts explains why travel is good for us and how the unexpected part in a journey can change us for the better.   “The best gift to travel is just allowing yourself to be surprised,” says Potts. “Stumbling into serendipity, having a bad time, and realizing that it's not as bad as you thought it would be. We forget how easy it is to adapt, how helpful people are, and how we can figure it out and have a great time doing it.” “One of the gifts of travel is to sort of blow those habits open and be vulnerable and almost childlike in your relationship to the world again,” says world traveler Rolf Potts. Photo by Fritz Liedtke. In “The Vagabond’s Way: 366 Meditations on Wanderlust, Discovery, and the Art of Travel,” author Rolf Potts encourages you to sustain the mindset of a journey, even when you aren't able to travel, and affirms that travel is as much a way of being as it is an act of movement. Today, technology, cheap flights, and bucket-list trips have made travel easier, more affordable, and somewhat predictable. Potts says that’s also limited our options and possibilities as travelers.  “We're all in lockstep, following our phone, looking at a screen as a window into a place that we've traveled so far to come to, instead of just sort of following our nose or following our eyes or following our ears,” he says.   When it comes to modes of transportation, Potts shares his tips on exotic ways to travel without becoming overly dependent on flights.  “Train culture around the world is really fun to experience and it doesn't have as many emissions,” he suggests. “Stay on the sea over land and go those hardships, don't fast-forward your way through the world with a bunch of flights — slow down a little bit.” Delve deeper into life, philosophy, and what makes us human by joining the Life Examined discussion group on Facebook.

Therapist Terry Real shares insights on challenges in long-term relationships, highlighting the lack of relationship skills in modern society. Discusses evolving dynamics in relationships, managing conflicts, and breaking unhealthy patterns for future generations. Emphasizes the importance of effective communication and mutual understanding for lasting partnerships.

Judith Orloff, UCLA clinical psychiatrist and author of The Genius of Empathy: Practical Skills to Heal Your Sensitive Self, Your Relationships, and the World, explains that empathy is what connects us. It’s the ability to care, to listen, and to open our hearts. The practice of empathy, Orloff says, is a simple yet “precious gift” and that displaying empathy is  the “best of who we are.” Orloff also says being empathetic is “a way we can save our world because empathy is the key element in reaching out to people, even if you disagree with them, even if you don't like them, it allows you to establish accord with them.” In addition, Orloff says, “when you're open to empathy, all kinds of good things can happen to your body. There's something called the Mother Teresa effect, where it's been shown that if you witness an act of empathy, and I were to draw your blood, it would show that your immunity would go up immediately. And what that says to me is that just alone, watching empathy can increase our immunity and make us healthier.” Zachary Wallmark, an associate professor of musicology and with the Center for Translational Neuroscience at the University of Oregon, talks about his research on the intersection of music and empathy. Wallmark has  observed, through magnetic imagining, how listening to music relates to social cognition and empathy. “Empathy,” Wallmark says, “produces a very distinctive neural signature in the brain when folks are listening to music. Empathy modulates music processing in areas of the brain that are associated with cognitive control, with social processing, with reward, and with emotion.”  Through music, Wallmark says, we can “explore our own identity, learn about others, bond with others. So music can be useful in social cohesion, bonding, [and] it can help coordinate group activity. It can also demarcate social boundaries, who is like us and who is different from us.” In her book The Genius of Empathy: Practical Skills to Heal Your Sensitive Self, Your Relationships, and the World, author Judith Orloff says  “If you're having difficulties with your relationships, just try this gift-- just to listen, with your eyes, with your voice, with your heart -  it's such a gift and it helps people feel seen and heard and valued, which is the point of empathy.”  Judith Orloff, pictured here, says “in my life, the most important thing to me is connection, and love and understanding. That is what gives me the most meaning Whether it's with nature, with human beings, with animals - empathy allows us that opportunity to connect with our human kind and everything about this life that we've been given.”  Photo courtesy of Bob Riha Zachery Wallmark, pictured here, says “music can create a kind of playground to try on, in a fantasy sense, different types of emotional reactions. You can be a different person, you can experience things that you're not experiencing in your … normal life." Photo by Kim Leeson. Delve deeper into life, philosophy, and what makes us human by joining the Life Examined discussion group on Facebook.

This week, Katherine Morgan Schafler, author of The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control, explores our relationship with the ideal of being a perfectionist. Morgan Schafler encourages greater self-awareness in managing perfectionism, saying it’s OK to be inspired without the expectation that we will ever achieve that goal.  Katherine Morgan Schafler. Photo courtesy of Eric Michael Pearson This episode of Life Examined with Katherine Morgan Schafler was originally broadcast May 26th, 2024

Doctor Elizabeth Comen and Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Linda Greenhouse talk about gender bias and its lingering impact on women’s healthcare and reproductive rights.

This week, Casper ter Kuile,  co-founder of Nearness, and author of “The Power of Ritual,” discusses the value of building community and coming together, and offers some practical advice for forging meaningful connections including the ability to shift away from some of our accustomed patterns of giving advice and instead offer our full attention, loving presence and just listen.   

Jonathan Bastian talks with writer, lecturer, and author Susan Cain about the sweet joy of sadness. Cain, author of Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole, reflects on the touch of sweetness that comes from sadness and despair and shares how a greater acceptance of these emotions can be beneficial and even therapeutic. Delve deeper into life, philosophy, and what makes us human by joining the Life Examined discussion group on Facebook.

This week, Ryan Holiday, speaker and author of  “Discipline is Destiny: The Power of Self Control” shares some advice on the stoic virtue of self discipline.  Holiday says that in today’s world of abundance, self discipline and self imposed boundaries are fundamental to meeting our potential, achieving balance and leading a good life. 

Psychologist Katherine Morgan Schaflter talks about her book The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control, the universal desire to seek perfection, and the need for greater self-awareness in managing perfectionism.

Pulitzer-prize winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses his memoir “A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial” and the challenges and pain he faced growing up a Vietnamese refugee.